Wife's death, wartime PTSD tore at Orosi shooter

This story has it all. All the things tied together producing a sad ending. Alvarez, a Vietnam veteran was dealing with a lot from Vietnam. PTSD and Agent Orange plus a daughter born with Spina Bifida. He also had a marriage that survived over 40 years until his wife passed away in 2012.

It is a story about a veteran wanting to heal and seeing VA doctors to take an active part in getting better.

He cared about his daughters and grandkids. So what happened? Aside from having a gun in the house some will want to point to, when there was no sign of Alvarez being dangerous before, there was no need to remove his weapons. Some will want to blame PTSD but again they will be missing the point that this veteran was getting help as well as the part of the article pointing out that violence is hardly ever a part of PTSD. Most of the time they are a greater danger to themselves than someone else.

All the way around, this story has a lot of sadness.

Wife's death, wartime PTSD tore at Orosi shooter
By Lewis Griswold
The Fresno Bee
Tuesday, May. 28, 2013

OROSI -- His family meant everything to Anthony "Tony" Alvarez Sr., a 63-year-old Vietnam war veteran who was devastated when his wife died last year. He shared his home with his two daughters, Valerie Alvarez, who has spina bifida and uses a wheelchair, and Jennifer Kimble, who moved back home last summer with her husband and three children.

So what made this family man take a gun and shoot his daughters, killing Kimble and critically injuring Valerie Alvarez, before killing himself early Monday morning?

His wife's death, and the post-traumatic stress disorder that was the legacy of his wartime service, may have been too much for him to bear, his son said Tuesday.

Alvarez spared Kimble's three children, an 8-year-old girl and two boys ages 11 and 13, who were in the home at the time of the shootings.

"His grandchildren meant the world to him," Anthony Alvarez Jr. of Corcoran said Tuesday outside the home where the murder-suicide took place.
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